Left-leaning journalists don't just pull their punches when it comes to criticizing liberal politicians, they also seem paradoxically inclined to do so when it comes to discussing radical Islam. This curious phenomenon (curious in that modern liberalism is highly secular and radical Islam decidedly is not) has repeated itself many times over the years and is really one of the most bizarre behaviors I've seen in politics.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2008/05/09/pulling-punches-wapo-pulls-article-being-too-critical-islamhttp://europenews.dk/enhttp://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/may14/cartoons-050408.htmlA group of editors who decided to run the cartoons are being tried on blasphemy charges in absentia in a Jordanian court. Death threats against the cartoonist who drew Muhammad with a bomb nested in his turban have forced the 73-year-old and his wife into hiding. And writers, artists and performers are stifling themselves from producing work that might provoke violence from Muslim extremists, said Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten.
During a talk Wednesday at Cubberley Auditorium, Rose addressed the continued fallout from the cartoons while railing against what he described as an international increase in hate-speech laws, including prohibitions in some countries against Holocaust denial theories.
"These insult laws?blasphemy laws that are intended to protect religious symbols or religious sensibilities?in fact are being used to silence critical voices around the world. I think we have to remove them. I think the only laws that are needed to be kept on the books when it comes to speech are laws that criminalizes incitement to violence."
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=293066136982306Islamofascism: Suicide bombs aren't the only chilling weapon Islamists are using in their war to the death with Western civilization. Exploiting the free world's laws on libel and so-called hate speech, they intimidate truth-telling writers.
When American Center for Democracy director Rachel Ehrenfeld in 2003 authored "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed ? and How to Stop It," she was intellectually taking part in the global war on terror. But she also ended up becoming enmeshed in an international legal war.
Saudi banker and suspected al-Qaida financial supporter Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz and his sons were named in the book and Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld for libel in Britain ? although only 23 copies of the American-published "Funding Evil" were purchased there, online.
British libel law is notoriously geared to the advantage of the plaintiff. So Ehrenfeld chose not to defend her case, and in 2005 High Court Justice Sir David Eady pronounced a default judgment ordering Ehrenfeld to apologize and pay $225,000.
Ehrenfeld countersued in the U.S., but the courts ruled they had no personal jurisdiction over Mahfouz under New York state law. As a result, Ehrenfeld is now discouraged from traveling abroad to promote her important, potentially life-saving work. And publishers, too, will be discouraged from printing her future books by the fear of being sued for large sums of money.
